When Homosexuality Hits Home

Joe Dallas

Description

The heart-wrenching declaration that a loved one is a homosexual is increasingly being heard in Christian households across America. How can this be? What went wrong? Is there a cure? In this straightforward book, Joe Dallas offers practical counsel, step by step, on how to deal with the many conflicts and emotions parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters or any family member will experience when learning of a loved one's homosexuality. Drawing from his own experience and from his many years of helping families work through this perplexing and unexpected situation, Joe offers scriptural and compassionate advice to both struggling gays and those who love them.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736960373
• Langue: English

Extrait

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover by Koechel Peterson Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota
Cover and interior image Kevin Tolman/Getty Images/Photodisc Green
Every effort has been made to give proper credit for all stories, poems, and quotations. If for any reason proper credit has not been given, please notify the author or publisher and proper notation will be given on future printing.
WHEN HOMOSEXUALITY HITS HOME
Copyright 2004 by Joe Dallas
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dallas, Joe, 1954-
When homosexuality hits home / Joe Dallas.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7369-1201-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-6037-3 (eBook)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7369-1201-3
1. Homosexuality-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title.
BR115.H6D37 2004
261.8 35766-dc22
2004007303
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
To my family, and to all our families.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Nick Harrison of Harvest House Publishers for his patience and persistence when editing this project.
As always, my gratitude to Renee, Jody, and Jeremy for their unending love and support is greater than I can express.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One
Now That You Know
Chapter Two
How Can This Be?
Chapter Three
Loving a Gay Son or Daughter
Chapter Four
When Homosexuality Hits Your Marriage
Chapter Five
When Other Family Members Are Gay
Chapter Six
Negotiating Family Boundaries
Chapter Seven
The Three Most Common Arguments
Chapter Eight
A Mile in Their Shoes
An Open Letter to My Loved One
What to Do Now
Notes
Other Fine Harvest House Books on Homosexuality
Resources from Joe Dallas
Each of us will at some point in our lives look upon a loved one and ask the question:
We are willing, Lord, but what can we do?
For it is true that we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don t know what part of ourselves to give, or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with, and should know, who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding.
-A R IVER R UNS T HROUGH I T
Introduction
I ll begin by assuming you never thought you d be reading a book like this.
That s a broad assumption, of course, and I make it without knowing you or the circumstances that put this book in your hands. Still, I can safely guess that someone you love is homosexual. Further, you probably know this book is written from a conservative Christian viewpoint, so if you ve picked it up, I ll wager you do not approve of homosexuality, but care deeply about your gay loved one nonetheless. I also assume you d like to protect your relationship with him or her without compromising your beliefs; that you hope this person will abandon homosexual behavior; that you didn t expect to find this out about your loved one, but now, having found it out, you re anxious to know what to do or say, and what not to do or say, or both. That s probably why you re reading When Homosexuality Hits Home -because now that you know, you have questions.
For the past sixteen years, I ve consulted with many people who have had questions similar to the ones on your mind now. I ve counseled parents reeling from the shock of discovery, wanting to know what, if anything, they did wrong. Or what they can say to change their son s mind, what to do when their daughter wants to bring her lesbian lover home for the holidays, or how to respond when they re called homophobic or bigoted.
Wives, too, have sat in my office, shattered and bewildered after learning of a husband s sexual secret, wondering if the man she thought she knew was really a stranger she d never known.
I ve wept with grown men whose fathers came out later in life, sometimes contracting AIDS in the process and devastating entire families. I ve listened to the concerns of family members who ve asked how to handle their openly gay sibling s wanting to spend time with their kids, or what their policy should be at family gatherings; still others have asked how to answer the claims of relatives who say they re both gay and Christian.
In each case, I ve wished I could put a how to book into their hands. And so, with that wish in mind, this book was written.
My interest in the subject is more than professional, though. It s deeply personal, because homosexuality hit my own home, long ago, bringing indescribable pain and misunderstanding along with it.
Sex itself became a source of confusion to me when I was repeatedly molested by pedophiles in my neighborhood-men who were skilled at manipulating boys into sexual favors. These encounters introduced me to pornography, orgies, and a number of other perversions, leaving me jaded and obsessed with sex from an early age. So by the time I was an adolescent, I was involved with adult men, girls, and boys. The sexual revolution of the 1960s was in full swing, and doing it seemed to be on everyone s mind. That suited me fine; I indulged whenever I could, and I was oddly proud of the fact that I knew more about sex than most of my friends. I had learned to manipulate and seduce, having been seduced myself, and when I used these skills on girls at my school, I was quick to brag openly about my conquests.
Sex with guys was another matter. I enjoyed it when it happened but never spoke of it, much less bragged about it, to anyone. (As liberal as the times were, the revolution only condoned casual sex between men and women; sex between men was still looked down on.) I never considered myself to be completely homosexual, since girls still held a genuine appeal to me. But during drunken high school parties, field trips, or sleepovers with a friend, I always looked for sexual opportunities. They came frequently; more frequently than any of us would have dared to admit. And by the time I was fifteen, I also began having sex with adult men, whom I would contact through an underground gay dating service, to my list of secret practices.
In a way, it was all exciting and flattering. But questions about my future- Will I ever outgrow my homosexual tendencies? Will I ever be caught in the act? Will I ever get married? -all began to pile up, taking an emotional toll. By the time I was in high school, I was often depressed, and when I wasn t acting out sexually, I spent most of my free time alone.
It was during those early high school years that my parents started to comment on my emotional withdrawal. After coming home from school, I d head straight for my room where I would remain, door shut and locked, until called for dinner. I d eat quickly and silently, answering questions about my day with the briefest possible response, then excuse myself at the first opportunity. I refused to watch television with my parents and brothers, preferring the solitude of my own room where I could indulge my private loves of music, reading, and sexual fantasy. The family who loved me became, God forgive me, an unwelcome intrusion into my life.
By my sixteenth birthday, my parents were becoming alarmed. My grades dropped; I was skipping classes to go to the beach alone and sit for hours on the sand, staring into nothingness; and my isolation had worsened. They began asking questions: Was it drugs? Was I depressed? Did I want to talk to a psychiatrist?
How could I tell them-how could anyone in 1971 tell his parents- No, nothing s wrong, I just like to have sex with guys. I m one of those queers I ve heard you make jokes about so many times, Dad. Oh, and Mom, if you remember warning me when I was little to stay away from the downtown theaters because there were men there who might want me, you were right, they wanted me. I lost my virginity eight years ago, and I m seriously wondering if I ll ever have anything close to a normal life.
And therein lay the problem. Isolated as I was from my parents, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt them with the truth. Hurting them with my silence seemed kinder.
The silence was broken the spring I attended a Bible study at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, a Southern California megachurch that was experiencing an electrifying revival known as the Jesus Movement. Thousands of kids-most of them hippie types recently converted to Christianity-went there weekly to worship and to sit under Pastor Chuck Smith s teaching. A strikingly beautiful classmate had asked me to go with her, and, in retrospect, I m sure she sensed some of my inner turmoil and saw me as a young man who was ripe for the good news.
The gospel I heard Chuck preach that night was plain and direct. When he said, Man is forever hungry for what only God can give him and is doomed to grasp for love any way he can until he finds the real Source of love, I knew I was being described in merciless detail. For the following three months I wrestled with the enormity of conversion, wondering how I could follow Christ and abandon the sexual behavior that by now seemed to define me. But the more I pondered concepts like eternity, God, and death, the more I wondered how I could afford not to follow Christ and abandon my sexual behavio